Method and apparatus for marking graded citrous fruit



May 12, 1925.

' A. B. HALE METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MARKING GRADED cITnUs FRUIT May12, 1925. 1,537,603

A. B. HALE METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MARKING GRADED CITRUS FRUIT FiledNov` 26, 192.4 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 UNITED4 STATES 1,537,603 PATENT oEFI'cE.

ARTHUR B. HALE, OF TAMPA, FLORIDA, ASSIGNOR, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, 'IO-VIi. J'. SV'IG'N' MACHINE COMPANY, OF NASHU'A, NEW HAMPSHIRE, .ACORPORATION OF NEW' HAMPSHIRE.

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MARKING GRADED CITROUS FRUIT.

Application led November 2B, 1924. Serial No. 752,388.

To all who/m. t mag/- concern:

Be it knownthat I, ARTHUR B. HALE, a citizen of the United States, andresident of Tampa, in the county of Hillsborough and State kof Floridahave invented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods andApparatus for Marking Graded Citrous Fruit, of which the following is aspecification. y

This invention relates to the treatment of fruit, especially citronsfruit such as oranges and grape fruit, so as to mark their surfaces withidentifying trade-marks, names or words. To facilitate an understandingof the reasons for, and the advantages of, the present invention, thecustomary practice will first be explained.

'A fruit packing house equipment usually has one or more units, eachunit including a washer to which they fruit is delivered from thepickers boxes, a dryer, a polishcr, a grader and a sizer through whichthe fruit (which for the sake of brevity and not of limitation will behereinafter referred to as oranges) continuously passes in thesuccessive order named. When a marking machine has been employed, it hasbeen customary to locate it between the polisher and the grader,andconsequently all of the oranges, regardless of grade or size, aremarked alike.

The members of the unit called the graderconsists of mechanism orapparatus hereinafter explained, alongside of which a number ofattendants stand or sit and examine the passing oranges and pick up theproper ones and deposit them on a spaced off conveyor, from which theoranges are delivered to a plurality of other members called sizers fromwhich the different sizes escape into receptacles called bins Whereother attendants stand and pick up the oranges and wrap them and packthem in boxes to be shipped.

The principal object of the present invention is to enable citrons fruitto be clearly and properly marked by causing it to travel, in gradedcondi-tion, past mechanism for printing or marking it, and then throughmechanism which delivers the fruit in assorted sizes to position wherethey can be Wrapped, whereby no handling of the marked frult is requireduntil said fruit, in

' tors c',

assorted sizes, yreaches posit-ion to be wrapped and packed.

With the above-mentioned Vobject in view, and others hereinafterexplained, the invention consists in the method and in the apparatussubstantially as hereinafter described and pointed out in they claims.

Of the .accompanying drawings:

Figure 1 is a plan View of portions of a well-known packing lhouse unit,and of marking machines .in-their relative positions to attain theobjects of the invention.

Figure 2 is an elevation and part section lon line 2-2 of Figure 1, on amuch larger scale.

Figure 3 .is a view similar to Figure 2, lllustrating a slightlydifferent form of marking machine.

Figure t is a sectional detail hereinafter described.

Similar reference characters indicate similar parts in all of the views,letters beingemployed to indicate those portions or members of the unitwhich are or may be of wellknown form, and numerals being employed forthe marking machine.

Referring first to Figure 1, a belt a conveys the fruit from thepolisher (not shown) to the grader conveyor b which may be a belt or anendless series of rolls and above which are deflectors blnz. Close toand parallel with the conveyor b and travelling in an opposite orreverse direction, is aL belt conveyor c above which are deflecdivisionboards c?, and hinged gates the use of this well-known form or type ofgrader, a number of attendants employed according to their skill andspeed capacity, occupy positions along the unobstructed side of theconveyor b and examine the oranges not as to size but as to quality orgrade, and manually transfer the selected ones to certain spaces on thebelt c. For instance those which have such appearance as to be known orclassed asBright, Golden, or Russet, are transferred, respectively, tothe spaces lettered B, G, R, in Figure 1. And the plain ones" may, forinstance, be deposited in the space P. The deflectors o direct thedierent grades of oranges to the throats of the sizers, of which fourare illustrated, each throat ycomprising mainlyan inclined board ortable 12 havc3. In

ing a delivery end or portion 14 (Figs.` 1 and 2) over which the orangesare rolled to the sizers.

Before describing the markers one of which is preferably employed ateach of the four throats indicated, the illustrated and well-known formof sizers will be briefly described.

Figure 1 illustrates portions of two carrier belts d, one extendingAfrom each pair of throats and travelling in the direction indi'- catedby arrows. Each belt d travels along two guide boards. al which areinclined laterally relatively to each other so that the middle of thebelt is higher than its edges to cause the oranges to gravitate towardspaces underneath strip or roll barriers d2, said spaces being ofgradually or step-bystep increasing width so that the smaller Aorangeswill escape into a bin e, the next gardless of size can have its gradeprinted,

thereon. Other advantages will be explained hereinafter.

The marking machine selected for illustration by Figure 2 issubstantially the same as that shown, described and claimed in myapplication filed April 8, 1924, Serial No. 704,978, to which referencemay be had if further explanation than the following isA desired. Saidmachine comprises mechanism which is preferably removably ino-unted onor above the table 12 and delivery portion 14 of the sizer throat, toact on the passing fruit 15 guided by strips 16. Said mechanism includesa riser 18 having a die 23 at its apex over which an ink-carrying ribbon26 is intermittently Ifed. These last mentioned parts are supported by aremovably mounted strip or platform X towhich standards 33, 34, aresecured. Pivoted to the standards 33, at 35, is an arm or a pair of arms37 the other ends of which are adjustably supported .by the standards34.

Carried by a driven pulley 39 and by a pulley mounted in a carriage 46slidable on the arms 37 is a belt 54. A strap 55 connectf ed to thecarriage 46' passes around a pulley 57 and is connected by a spring 58to the standards 33. The mechanism just described bears thesamereference numerals as employed in the application above referred to.

or present purposes, since no specific type of marker is claimed herein,it is suicient to explain that the oranges 15 are rolled by the belt 54in close succession over the 1 ibbon which extends transversely acrossthe die 23, and are printed or marked, and then `pass to the sizer d,d2.

A somewhat different arrangement and form of marker is illustrated byFigure 3 in whichthe sizer belt al extends from the space 'over the'heated die (and the ink ribbon when one is employed) is mounted on apulley 39 and the pulley 45', being held yieldinfrl taut b a strap 55connected to the` s y y 90 carriage 46 and passing aroundv a pulley 57and connected by a spring 58"'to the standard 33. The lower run of thebelt 54 passes under a gravitating pulley 59 car- \ried by an arm 60pivotally supported at Instead of mounting all of the parts of themarker so `as to be removable as a unit, it will sometimes besuilicient, for ,the purposes presently explained, to only remove thedie and ribbon and heater when the latter' are employed. Such anarrangement is illustrated by Figure 4 in which the construction may beassumed t be substantially the saine as in Figure 2 excepting that theriser 18 has dowels 18.tting holes in the platform or runway X, saidriser having a recess in which the die 23 is mounted with,

an electric heater below it, the structure being such that the riserwith its die and heater can be removed as a unit leaving the runway Xunobstructed for the-free passage of fruit when, for any reason, thefruit passing toone or another of the several sizers is not to --bemarked. When an ink ribbon is employed with this last mentionedstructure, and when the riser and die. are removed, the ribbon cansimply be detached or otherwise put out of commission.

The reason for providing' a marker at the throat of the sizer, whichmarker either as an entirety (Figs. 2 and 3) or the essential partthereof (F ig. 4) can be displaced or removed without disturbing theplatform or runway below it, is that sometimes it may be desirable tosend one or more of the grades to the sizers without being marked, whilecontinuing to mark the other grades. In other words, any grade can bemarked or, by a quickly effected change, allowed tol pass to its sizerwithout any marking.

, between the upper and lower runs of the.-

-l fr A number of advantages are obtained by having an individual markerat the throat or entrance of each 4of a plurality of sizers to print thefruit after the grading is effected, vizr-As the marking is effectedafter grading instead'of before, there isr no opportunity for the marksto be blurred by the handling which the grader attendants necessarilyemployv to select and transfer the individual oranges from the belt b tothe proper spaces above belt c. And since the fruit reaches position invfrontvof the grading attendants un-marked, there is no liability of anymark being mistaken by an attendant (who necessarily works as rapidly asis humanly possible) for a blemish that will cause him to discard a goodorange; nor could he be confused by the color of the marking so as tograde an orange wrongly.

An important feature of the invention is that it provides for markingeach grade separately so that grades can be marked respectively Bright,Golden, Russet, and also with some other mark such as a trade-mark. Forinstance, each and every orange reaching a sizer may be markedSealdsweet Russet 4or Scaldsweet Bright, and then all the oranges ofeach of such grades are automatically divided into proper sizes forwrapping and packing. This resultcould not-be accomplished when thefruit is marked before grading because all of the grades would be markedalike.

l/Vhen, as heretofore, marking is effected before grading, the number oforanges delivered to the grader (through the marking machineiis so greatthat a large and heavy machine is required to do the marking. Suchmachine is costly and occupies considerable room. A machine which isrequired to mark only the relatively small number of oranges. passing toeach sizer is so small that it is readily Amounted at the throat of eachsizer, as described, without adding anything to the floor space occupiedby the entire unit, or requiring any shifting of the relative positionsof the different conveyors of the unit.

From the above description it will non7 be understood that all oranges'which reach a particular bin e for wrapping and packing will hepractically uniformas to size as well as marked alike With the gradessuch as Bright, Golden or Russet and also with a selected trade-marksuch as Sealdsweet or any other Word or name.

Having now described my invention, I claim:

l. The method of identifying different sizes of fruit by uniformindications of the grades thereof, consisting in first sorting the fruitinto diferent grades, then marking all of each grade uniformly, and thenseparating those of each grade into different sizes.

2.,'lhemethod of providing fruit of different sizes. with uniformindications of its grade and source or origin, consisting in firstgrading thev fruit, then uniformly marking all of each gradedistinctively, and then dividing those of each grade into differentsizes.

3. A fruit marker having a' grader lto deliver fruit thereto, and asizer in posiltion to receive the fruit directly from the marker.

4. The combination with a fruit grader and a plurality of sizers forreceiving the fruit from the grader, of an individual marker at thethroat of each sizer.

5. The combination with a fruit grader and a plurality of sizers and a,runway leading from the grader to each sizer, of means for marking thefruit passing over each runway, said marking means being removable. v

6. Apparatus for producing graded fruit in different sizes with thegrades marked thereon, comprising a grader, a plurality of sizers, and acorresponding plurality of markers, one marker being located in positionto act on the fruit of each grade ,passing from the grader to a sizer.

7. Apparatus for successively and continuously grading, marking, andsizing citrous fruit, comprising means for causing the fruit to travelfrom the grader to the sizer, and a. fruit marker intermediate thegrader andthe sizer.

8. Apparatus for successively and continuously grading, marking, andsizing eitrous fruit, comprising a fruit sizer having a-throat, amarking machine mounted to act on fruit passing said throat, and meansfor delivering graded fruit to said throat.

9. Apparatus for successively and continuously grading, marking, andsizing citrons fruit, comprising a fruit sizerhaving a throat, a markingmachine removably mounted in said throat, and means for deliveringgradedfruit to said throat.

In testimony whereof I have aiixed my signature.

ARTHUR B. HALE.

Witnesses:

Zjl?. FREEMAN, EUNlon HAEUBERLEN.

